Inside the house I had singled out, we found only old women and young boys—the rest had all fled. Spread on the ground were pieces of white cloth on which flags were being rudely fashioned—Japanese, English, French and some others. They were changing their colours, all these people, as fast as they could—that is what they were doing; and farther on, as we came to more remote quarters, we found these protecting insignia already flying boldly from every house. Everybody wished to be friends. But my men exhorted me to proceed quickly and to escape from these districts, which, they alleged, were still full of Boxers and disbanded soldiery; and yielding to their entreaties, we again dashed onwards quicker and quicker. For half an hour and more we had, indeed, lost sight of every friendly face.
The succession of streets we passed was endless. There were nothing but these deserted main thorough-fares, and the scuttling people on the side alleys, and in absolute silence we reached an immense street running due north and south. To my surprise, although everything was now quite quiet, dead Chinese soldiers lay around here in some numbers. There were both infantry and cavalry flung headlong on the ground as they had fled. One big fellow, carrying a banner, had been toppled over, pony and all, as he rode away, and now lay in picturesque confusion, half thrown down the steep slope of the raised driving road, with his tragedy painted clearly as a picture. In the bright sunshine, with all absolutely quiet and peaceful around, it seemed impossible that these men should have met with a violent death such a short while ago amid a roar of sound. It was funny, curious, inexplicable.... For my men, however, there were no such thoughts; they climbed off their ponies, and, whipping out knives or bayonets, they slit the bandoliers and pouches from every dead soldier and threw them into the carts. They had become in this short time good campaigners; you can never have too much ammunition.
The big Shantung recruit, whom I had come across so oddly only three days before, was now once again plainly excited and smelled quarry. I remembered, then, that there was nothing very strange in the decisive actions of all my followers; they were being led by this man and told exactly what to do. He had, after all, been outside all the time, and knew what had been going on and where now to strike hard! Quickly, without speaking a word, he pushed ahead, and arriving at the big gates of another inn, loudly called on some one inside to open. He could not have got any very satisfactory answer, for the next thing I saw was that he had sprung like lightning from his stolen pony, had thrown his rifle to the ground, and was attacking a latticed window with an old bayonet he had been carrying in his hand. With half a dozen furious blows he sent the woodwork into splinters, and, springing up with a lithe, tiger-like jump, he clambered through the gap, big man as he was, with surprising agility. Then there was a dead silence for a few seconds and we waited in suspense. But presently oaths and protests came from far back and drew nearer and nearer, until I knew that the some one who had refused to answer had been duly secured. The gates themselves were finally flung open, and I saw that an oldish man of immense stature had been driven to do this work—a man who, so far from being afraid, was only held in check by a loaded revolver being kept steadily against his back. The Shantung man's face had become devilish with rage, and I could see that he was slowly working himself up into that Chinese frenzy which is such madness and bodes no good to any one. I was at a loss to understand this scene.
Our captured carts were driven in and the gates securely shut; and then, driving his captive still in front of him, my man led us, with a rapidity which showed that he knew every inch of his ground, to a big building at the side. Then it was my turn to understand and to stare. Within the building a big altar had been clumsily made of wooden boards and draped with blood-red cloth; and lining the wall behind it was a row of hideously-painted wooden Buddhas. There were sticks of incense, too, with inscriptions written in the same manner as those we had seen being scraped so feverishly from the door-posts a few minutes ago. Red sashes and rusty swords lay on the ground also. Here there could be absolutely no mistake; it was a headquarters of that evil cult which had brought such ruin and destruction in its train. The Boxers had been in full force here.
The Shantung man, for reasons I could not yet unravel and did not care to learn, had become absolutely livid with rage now, and the others, who were all Catholics, shared his fury. They said that here converts had been tortured to death—killed by being slit into small pieces and then burned. Everybody knew it. With spasmodic gestures they called on the captive to fling to the ground the whole altar, to smash his idols into a thousand pieces, to destroy everything. But the man, resolute even in captivity, sullenly refused. Then, with a movement of uncontrollable rage, one man seized a long pole, and in a dozen blows had broken everything to atoms. Idols, red cloth, incense sticks, bowls of sacrificial rice and swords lay in a shapeless heap. And with ugly kicks my men ground the ruin into yet smaller pieces. Somehow it made me wince. It was a brutal sight; to treat gods, even if they be false, in this wise....
As I looked and wondered, scarcely daring to interfere, the Shantung man had pushed his face, after the native manner, close into that of his enemy and was muttering taunts at him, which were hissed like the fury of a snake in anger. This could not last—my man was carrying it too far. It was so. With a cry his victim suddenly closed on him, seized him insanely by the throat and hair, tried to tear him to the ground. I remember I had just a vision of those brown wrestling bodies half-bared by the fury of their clutches, and I could hear the quickly drawn pants which came at a supreme moment, when there was a sharp report, which sounded a little muffled, a piece of plaster flew out of the wall behind the two, and some biting smoke bit one's nostrils. Before I realised what had been done, the giant Boxer was staggering back; then he tottered and fell on his knees, talking strangely to himself, with his voice sliding up and down as if it now refused control. Some blood welled up to his lips and trickled out; he shook a bit, and then he crashed finally down. There he lay among the ruins of his faith—dead, stone-dead, killed outright. The Shantung man stood over him with a smoking revolver in his hand. I remembered then that he had never taken his hand from the weapon. He had been waiting for this—it was an old score, properly paid....
I had had enough, however, of this mode of settling up under cover of my protection, and angrily I intimated that if there was any more shooting I should draw too, and pistol every man. I was proceeding to add to these remarks, and was even becoming eloquent as my righteous feelings welled up, when a thunder of blows suddenly resounded on the outer gates, and made me realise with a start that this was no place for abstract morality. Strayed so far from safety, we had taken our lives into our own hands; at any moment we might have to fight once more desperately against superior numbers. Perhaps in the end we would totter over in the same way as the unfortunate who had strayed across our path.... Indeed, it was no time for morality....
The thunder on the gates continued, and then with a crash they came open suddenly, and a party of French soldiers, with fixed bayonets and their uniforms in great disorder, rushed in on us. They did not see me at first, and, charging down on our captured carters, merely yelled violently to them, "Rendez-vous! Rendez-vous!" Before we could move or disclose ourselves, they had seized some of the carts and were making preparations to drive them off without a second's delay. But then I made up my mind in a flash, too, and becoming desperate, I threw down the gauntlet. The contagion had caught me. Running at them with my drawn revolver, I, too, shouted, "Rendez-vous! Rendez-vous!" and with my men following me, we interposed ourselves between the marauders and their only line of retreat. There was no time for thinking or for explanations; somebody would have to give way or else there would be shooting. In a second, a fresh desperate situation had arisen.
The marauders, astonished at my sudden appearance and the manner in which their razzia had been interrupted, stood debating in loud voices what they should do, and calling me names. Twice they turned as if they would shoot me down; then one of them made up the minds of the others by declaring that their object was not to fight, but to pillage—these few carts did not matter. With lowering faces they speedily withdrew, cursing me with calm insolence as they reached the gates. Outside we saw that they had a number of other carts and mules, all loaded up with huge bundles; and reeling round these captured things were other drunken soldiers, whose disordered clothing and leering faces proclaimed that they had given themselves solely up to the wildest orgies. To-day there would be no quarter....
We waited until the clamour of these men had died away in the distance, and then, with a strange double grin, the big Shantung man turned silently back into an inner courtyard, and pointed me out another building. I did not understand, for the very stables were empty and deserted here, as if everything had been already looted or carried away into safety. There appeared to be not a cart, not a piece of harness, not a stick of furniture, nothing left at all. The big Shantung man still grinned, however, and quickly made for the building he had pointed out. The door was open, as if there was nothing to conceal, and only enormous bins made of bamboo matting half blocked the entrance. But with a few rough efforts my men sent these soon flying; then there was a mighty stamping and neighing of alarm, and as I looked in I laughed from sheer surprise. The house was full of ponies, mules, and even donkeys, which had been driven in and tethered together tightly behind barricades of tables and chairs. Now seeing us, they stood there all eyes and ears, and with prolonged whinnies and gruntings plainly welcomed this diversion. With glee we drove them out and counted them up—ten more animals!